


Nightmares and Dreamscapes

by VictoriaAGrey



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Anger, Anxiety, Carol is her usual queen self, Daryl has a bad time, Frustration, Implied Death, Love, M/M, Panic, Rick has a wry sense of humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 20:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2361806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaAGrey/pseuds/VictoriaAGrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl's head has never been the most scenic of places, but one night his nightmares go too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares and Dreamscapes

**Author's Note:**

> I literally thought of this shit, mapped it out, and wrote it in the span of five hours. What the fuck!? If it's awful, don't tell me!
> 
> P.S. Mad props if you know where that title came from.

_Closing the hatch to the watch tower, Daryl looked around the confined space for the binoculars so he could do what he did best; look out for Rick. Maggie had come running into his cell minutes before to inform him, as he’d requested, that Rick had snuck outside the fences again without his Colt. Daryl had been tempted to tear her a new one for abandoning her post instead of sending someone else to tell him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it when he looked into her eyes. Fear was creeping around the edges of her expression and he couldn’t blame her. Rick was scaring everyone with this nasty habit he’d picked up and nothing anyone said about it changed his mind on the matter._

_Ripping the binoculars from where they hung on a nail in the wall, he moved out of the glass enclosure and onto the metal walkway. He was hoping he’d come out in time to catch a glimpse of Rick in the trees, but no such luck. Rick was too quick and he had been too slow. But that wouldn’t matter anymore after today because this was it. Daryl had drawn an imaginary line at Rick sneaking out again like a naughty teenager with a hot date and he had crossed it. When he got back, Daryl planned to give him a piece of his mind before forbidding – actually forbidding – him from leaving the grounds again. It was one thing when it had only been Daryl he alarmed with his antics, but now it had spread through their core group and the rest of the prison community – people who didn’t even understand how fucking important he was in the grand scheme of things._

_Daryl made himself comfortable by dragging a chair kept in the tower onto the walkway while he seethed for the next several hours waiting for Rick’s return. Rather than letting his anger go, he permitted it to fester and grow each time he looked through his binoculars and didn’t see his wayward leader. No argument, whether it be calm or panicked, worked on Rick and his resolve to stay away from guns. Anger was all he had left... that and putting his stupid ass on lockdown. He had avoided it until now knowing that the last thing the mentally still-fragile Rick needed was somebody furiously yelling at him, but in the end, he had done this to himself. Daryl was allowing him recovery time to heal from all he’d experienced, but that didn’t mean he could drag everyone else down with him. This had gone on long enough._

_Hours passed and as the sun began its descent, dread bubbled in his veins, making his fingers twitch in anxiety. Although Rick flagrantly disregarded their demands for him to carry his gun, he always came back within a reasonable amount of time. Something was wrong and as he contemplated forming a search team to find him, a scream he would never forget resounded through the air, chilling him down to his very last atom._

_“OPEN THE GATES!” he yelled before turning into the watch tower and quickly making his way down the steel rungs, jumping down the last five in his haste to get to the source of the scream._

_“Dar- ”_

_“STAY HERE!” Daryl roared over his shoulder at Tyreese and Glenn as he ran into the woods, knife drawn._

Don’t be him. Don’t be him. Please don’t be him.

_Shallow beams of light lit Daryl’s way through the woods. His feet couldn’t carry him fast enough as they guided him through the underbrush and over fallen trees. It was one thing to know he was running in the right direction of the scream, but another to fucking get there fast enough to do anything about it!_

_It wasn’t much longer before he came across a heap of bodies, five walkers at least clumped from a central point. The body in the center was wearing a terrifyingly familiar outfit and convulsing on the ground, red smears discoloring the baby blue button-up he was wearing. Daryl’s breath hitched in his throat around a prayer he could not voice, one which would have proven useless in seconds. Quickly moving towards the man, every nightmare and awful thought he conceived about the love of his life leaving the prison without his Colt came true._

_Rick was bleeding out from several points of shredded flesh across his chest, the worst wound being a bite on his throat that he was attempting to cover with nothing more than his hands. His efforts in trying to catch his breath were futile; too much of his throat had been torn away by the jaws of a walker. Not an inclination of doubt was left in Daryl’s mind that he was an unwilling witness to Rick’s imminent death._

_“Rick – I – what,” Daryl started as he dropped to his knees beside him and replaced Rick’s hands around his throat with his own, blood seeping through the spaces between his fingers. “Why – why – why did you have to leave!? WHY DID YOU DO THIS!?”_

_The only answer Rick was able to provide was a watery cough as blood came pouring out of his mouth and down the sides of his face._

_Hot, acrid tears spilled freely from Daryl’s eyes as he frantically tried to think of some way, any way, Rick could survive this. When he came up with nothing, he began crying like he did after he was beaten as a child and wanted to be in the soothing arms of his mother. He couldn’t breathe as he felt the entirety of his world was collapsing around him._

_A bloody hand made contact with his cheek, the touch a shadow of what could have once been called a caress. Looking into Rick’s fading eyes, he saw the silent plea there to go through with the pact that everyone made - the one that was never verbalized but agreed upon by all. Eyes never breaking contact, Daryl reached for the knife he had dropped beside him and slotted his fingers along the grooves. He could barely see through his own tears, but he did notice the longing glance Rick gave him before he closed his eyes and turned his head in anticipation of what was to come._

_“I’m sorry, Rick. I’m so sorry,” he said on repeat as he lifted the knife and thrust it down, shattering skull and slicing through bra-_

“DARYL!”

Daryl’s body reacted instinctively to the yelling of his name and the sound of shattering glass. He rolled into a tight ball and turned so his back would be to whoever was in his cell. The position didn’t prove to be a comfortable one though as his body was shaking from lack of oxygen, chest heaving in a bid to stabilize him, and he was soaking wet, briefly wondering if the perpetrator who woke him had doused him with water or if he had just sweat profusely in his sleep.

“- wouldn’t have done it if you’d have woken easier -”

Recognizing the voice, Daryl flipped onto his back to look at Carol, who was white as a sheet and standing before the wreckage of a glass figurine that had resembled a Cherokee rose he found and set out with the intention of giving to her.

“What tha hell!?”

“It was the only way I could think to wake you without touching you,” she worriedly started explaining. “I’m so sorry, but I had to. Daryl it sounded like you -”

As Carol talked, Daryl’s nightmare crashed into him with shocking force. It felt too real to just be a nightmare. Maybe he was reliving the events of the previous day. It was too real, too real...

Pushing off the bed and swiftly moving past a startled Carol, Daryl launched himself into the cell block and down the stairs. All calls to get his attention went unanswered. He had a single goal in mind and there was no stopping him until he had proof that what he had just lived through was either the worst nightmare of his life or a sick reality his mind was incapable of processing. Hurrying past the obstruction that was the ramada, his eyes frantically scanned the land that now served as fields to grow crops.

_Where is he? Where is he? Where is he!?_

Relief so potent it felt like a drug coursed through his system at the sight of Rick stretching his arms above his head, right where he should be. As if sensing his presence from several yards away, Rick looked to where Daryl was catching his breath and smiled; a smile which quickly fell when he saw Daryl’s not exactly pristine condition. Throwing caution to the wind and not giving a lick of consideration to who could be watching – or even why he was doing it – Daryl ran towards Rick, wrapping his arms tightly around him as he crashed into him.

A surprised “Ohf!” came out of Rick before he tentatively reciprocated Daryl’s hug, tightening his grasp around his waist when he realized Daryl sank into the touch rather than flinched from it.

“Daryl, what’s wrong?”

_Nothing. And everything. If you weren’t so stubborn and goddamn stupid I wouldn’t have had that fucking awful nightmare. You can’t go outside the fences by yourself and without a gun ever again. Fucking hell, if losing him only in my sleep is that bad, how would I feel if the real thing happened? I wouldn’t survive. I’d die. Or at least a part of me would. Fuck! This being in love shit fucking sucks._

“Hey, talk to me. What happened?”

Rick’s softly intoned concern was enough to pull Daryl from his hiding place in the side of Rick’s neck to look him in the eyes. The life in them wasn’t fading in the face of death like they had been in his dream. No, these eyes were still alive, Bombay Sapphire piercing through to his soul and captivating every shred of attention he possessed. Daryl hoped that maybe one day he could make Rick feel the same. Leaning in, he gently pressed his lips to Rick’s and almost retracted when he felt returned pressure. He couldn’t remember the last time he kissed someone and they kissed him back, at least when he was sober. There was a reason he’d been slapped so many times in his life and dubbed by Merle’s friends as Daryl “No Game” Dixon.

“Sorry,” Daryl apologized as he looked away from Rick in favor of the ground, trying to step away from him but Rick kept a firm grasp on his waist.

“No, none of that,” Rick lightly chastised. “Look at me.”

Only after Daryl made eye contact with him did he start talking. “What just happened, that was... good. Are we gonna talk about all this later? Why this happened and what caused it?”

“Mmhmm,” Daryl agreed, knowing it was going to be awkward, but feeling hopefully of what the conversation could bring.

“Alright. What do ya have to do today?”

_Apologize to Carol for being a dick is currently at the top of my list._

“Talk ta Carol.”

“Oh? Gonna talk about how cute I am?”

_I MAY have implied ONCE to her that I thought you were cute but there is no way in hell you could know that._

“Cool yer jets there, Johnny Bravo. I gotta apologize fer bein’ rude when she woke me up.”

“Why did she wake you up?”

Falling silent again, Daryl looked away and was mildly surprised to see his arms still wrapped around Rick’s shoulders. He never thought of himself as one to reach out and enjoy touch, but then again, when had ever been in a relationship where he could test that theory? Maybe this would be the one and so far, it looked like he was off to find results that were very different from his hypothesis.

“Yeah, I’m in for quite a story later. Off you go then. We’ll talk after dinner.”

“Don’t work yerself too hard,” Daryl reminded him as they let their hold of each other go and he turned to walk back towards the prison.

“Sure. Anything else, dear?”

Rick may have been teasing, but Daryl wasn’t when he faced him with a stern expression that stopped any jest Rick may have had prepared.

“Yeah. Don’t ya dare step outside those fences.”

Daryl left him to his gardening after Rick assured him with a quiet nod.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a weird fascination with what Daryl's dreams would be like ever since I wrote the opening scene in part three of my Sine Metu Vive series. This is a byproduct of that fascination.
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoyed your read and feel free to come at me on my Tumblr, [mycroft-silently-judges-you](http://mycroft-silently-judges-you.tumblr.com)!


End file.
